1/27/2005  All Ball State University computer users should be aware of an ongoing threat of the Beagle.AZ worm.  Beagle.AZ is a mass-mailing worm that arrives on a system as an e-mail attachment (file extension .com, .cpl, .exe, or .scr) and spreads through file-sharing networks.  It sends copies of itself to all e-mail addresses it gathers from files with certain extensions but skips those addresses that contain particular strings.  The e-mail is spoofed and may appear to have come from a familiar e-mail address.

Systems Affected:  Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003e, Windows XP.

The e-mail will have the following characteristics:

From:      Spoofed.

Subject:  One of the following:

• Delivery by mail
• Delivery service mail
• Is delivered mail
• Registration is accepted
• You are made active
  

Body:  One of the following:

• Before use read the help
• Thanks for use of our software.
  

As a general rule, users should avoid opening the attachments of unsolicited e-mail.  To protect your PC from this worm you should be running Symantec virus definitions version 70126ax (extended version: 20050126.050) or greater are required to detect this threat.  If you do not have Symantec AntiVirus already installed on your computer system please visit http://www.bsu.edu/antivirus/.

Also all Windows computer users should be perform regular updates by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ or by configuring the Windows Update Service to perform automatic updates to your computer.